TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Saturday, Aug. 5, the 217th day of 2017. There are 148 days left in the year.

Highlights in History:

On August 5, 1957, the teenage dance show "American Bandstand," hosted by Dick Clark, made its network debut on ABC-TV. The British cartoon character Andy Capp, created by Reginald Smythe, first appeared in the Daily Mirror.

On this date:

In 1864, during the Civil War, Union Adm. David G. Farragut led his fleet to victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay, Alabama.

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the National Labor Board, which was later replaced with the National Labor Relations Board.

In 1936, Jesse Owens of the United States won the 200-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics, collecting the third of his four gold medals.

In 1953, Operation Big Switch began as remaining prisoners taken during the Korean War were exchanged at Panmunjom.

In 1962, actress Marilyn Monroe, 36, was found dead in her Los Angeles home; her death was ruled a probable suicide from "acute barbiturate poisoning." South African antiapartheid activist Nelson Mandela was arrested; it was the beginning of 27 years of imprisonment.

In 1967, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," the first Pink Floyd album, was released in the United Kingdom on the Columbia label.

In 1969, the U.S. space probe Mariner 7 flew by Mars, sending back photographs and scientific data.

In 1974, the White House released transcripts of subpoenaed tape recordings showing that President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, had discussed a plan in June 1972 to use the CIA to thwart the FBI's Watergate investigation; revelation of the tape sparked Nixon's resignation.

In 1986, it was revealed by Arts & Antiques magazine that artist Andrew Wyeth had, over a 15-year period, secretly created some 240 drawings and paintings of a woman named Helga Testorf, a neighbor in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

In 1991, Democratic congressional leaders formally launched an investigation into whether the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign had secretly conspired with Iran to delay release of American hostages until after the presidential election, thereby preventing an "October surprise" that supposedly would have benefited President Jimmy Carter. (A task force later concluded there was "no credible evidence" of such a deal.)